What Have We Accomplished, Where Are We Going

By Ruth Melville

On a bitterly cold night at the end of January, the Northwest Hills Council of Governments (NHCOG) held its third annual economic development summit in the Mad River Lofts building in Winsted. The main goal for the summit was to discuss the perennial issue: how can the 21 towns in the Northwest Corner work together to support local businesses and attract young people, entrepreneurs and visitors? But this was also an occasion to celebrate the successes of the past year and to plan the next steps forward.

The summit opened at 6 p.m. with what NHCOG called an interactive open house. Participants were free to tour the Mad River Lofts, the conversion of a 19th-century mill building into offices and workspaces for artists and entrepreneurs—itself an innovative example of what can be done to revitalize downtowns.

One ground-floor room was crowded with information tables staffed by a variety of groups supporting economic development, such as the Connecticut Small Business Development Center; Northwest Connect, the group working to bring fiber-optic connectivity to the region; the Northwest Connecticut Arts Council; and CivicLift, a community website provider whose slogan is “More feet on Main Street.”

As part of the open house, NHCOG invited attendees to vote for their “top 3 priorities” for regional investment over the next 10 years. The options on the ballot were high-speed fiber-optic broadband; improved transportation options; more affordable housing; an expanded food hub; ways of providing accurate and timely job information; a marketing strategy to attract either (1) young workers, or (2) entrepreneurs and home-based businesses, or (3) visitors and tourists; and a rural innovation lab (i.e., invite entrepreneurs, companies and universities to develop innovations in our rural setting).

At 7 p.m., the group gathered in a meeting room to hear five-minute updates on the progress made last year by several groups, such as Northwest Connect, the NWCT Regional Food Hub, the NWCT Regional Housing Council and the Regional Recreational Trails Map website. NHCOG’s Jocelyn Ayer, who chaired the meeting, talked about the organization’s new regional plan of conservation and development and the progress recently made on updating the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy.

The evening ended with a panel discussion on how to accomplish the main goal set out for the summit. Christian Allyn, a selectman from North Canaan, urged the group to make our region appealing to millennials like himself. He brought up the issue of affordable housing, and showed slides of successful building conversions into lofts, small apartments and coworking spaces.

Janet Carlson, CEO of the One Eleven Group and chair of the Cornwall EDC, mentioned that good local schools were an excellent way to attract families, and that a dynamic and attractive website for the town school was a good selling tool. Amy Wynn, executive director of the NWCT Arts Council, stressed the importance of promoting art and cultural events and of giving young people a voice.

The over 150 attendees of the summit were mostly town officials and members of economic development committees. Among those attending from Norfolk were First Selectman Matt Riiska, Michele Sloan and Paul Madore from the Planning and Zoning Commission, Kim Maxwell, Dawn Whelan and Steve Melville from the Norfolk Foundation, Julie Scharnberg of the Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation and David Cusick.

And at the end of the evening, who won the “top 3 priorities” poll? Coming in at number one was the rural innovation lab proposal, followed by high-speed fiber-optic broadband and a marketing strategy to attract entrepreneurs and home-based businesses.